World Cup Fever (Part II)

This is an update to my post yesterday exploring my thoughts about Africa in the oh-so-quickly approaching World Cup.

Being that I will live in Mali in a few months, which African nation should I support more: Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, or Togo?

Here is what I've found out so far:
This is the first time qualifying for the World Cup for all three nations. All three have their 'Jamaican Bobsled Team' stories. Out of the three, Ghana has the best team and the best legacy. For years they've been a contender in Africa - they've won the Africa Nations Cup several times and all sorts of youth tournaments in the past decade. The country is poor and so usually their best players are lured away by European teams with money. The powerhouse African teams (Cameroon, South Africa, and Nigeria) didn't qualify for the World Cup because, as critics say, they were over-confident and weren't focused as a team during games. Ghana doesn't have that self-defeating pride and are viewed as the most likely underdog to do well.

Out of all three countries, few have hope for Togo. Early on, they were ranked 96th in the world (only the top 32 compete in the World Cup) and their first game against a weak opponent was lost. But then they picked their head up and beat Senegal and Congo, two teams considered to be immensely better than Togo. The most goals scored by a single person this season in Africa were made by Togo's Emmanuel Sheyi Adebayor. Togo is the very little nation that could. No one thought they would do well (think of the Cleveland Browns making it to the Superbowl), yet, somehow, they beat some of the best teams in Africa to earn a place in the World Cup. If any country is an underdog in this tournament, it is Togo.

Cote D'Ivoire is a bit different. They aren't considered a particularly strong team - the story behind the team is what matters. Cote D'Ivoire has been a nation broken by war the past few years and its people are still suffering from periodic violent clashes, especially in the North where rebels still occupy much of the land. The night that the Cote D'Ivoire Elephants qualified for the World Cup when a Cameroon player hit the goalpost during a penalty shot and lost to Egypt, the people of Cote D'Ivoire flooded the streets cheering and celebrating alongside one another - something they have not experienced in quite some time. It may be a little naive to think this, but a poor country treated as insignificantly as Cote D'Ivoire, torn by war, many of its people afraid to go out on the streets having a team on the world stage to call their own can be a pretty inspiring situation. Unlike here in America, those nights that Cote D'Ivoire will be playing another team, every single person in the country will have their eyes glued to the TV, intensely watching every moment, a collective nation-wide holding of breathe during the last moments of the match to witness the official outcome... Just one or two wins in the World Cup can do amazing things for the people of the nation if only for a few weeks.

So after all this research to find out more about these teams, I'm not really sure I can pick between them yet if at all. I guess I can put it like this: when I'm practical and placing bets, I'll go for the Ghana Black Stars - the little guy inside me will throw his hands in the air for Togo - and my heart will go out and lose its voice screaming for the Elephants of Cote D'Ivoire.



Interesting side note about the World Cup: the beer, Budweiser, somehow got its stinking watered-down paws on sponsorship of the World Cup in Germany and was to be the only beer allowed to be sold in German football stadiums. Needless to say, Germans everywhere were pissed as hell. The Royal Jester of Beers doesn't even meet the purity laws enforced on all beers in Germany to use the best ingredients. There is no other country in the world where beer is more of a source of national pride than Germany - I've been witness to the fact that they sell it in German McDonalds. Well, anyways, Germans were outraged, so an agreement to allow Bitburger to be sold as well has been reached. (It's pretty easy to see my bias against American beers here - other than Michelob Amberbock that is.)